Sage had returned before this whole plot against the Yi Yang Group was put into motion. He arrived just in time to offer up some rewards for their performance. These rewards were already something he planned on giving out to the whole Lang Clan, so the only actual reward they received was getting priority spots in line. Funny enough, most of the fighting was done by Sage’s children and the Dragoons. For Sage’s kids, the real reward was deciding the order of entry for their own descendants while the Dragoons were rewarded with the right to start families and retire from the front lines.

The many hundreds of direct members of the Lang Clan were put into a rotation so that each of them could take a two week vacation to visit the Inner World. After treating the Yi Yang Group so fiercely, they pulled back from most of their commitments to protect themselves carefully. Other than the continuing harassment of the Yue Clan, the rest of the Lang Clan buttoned up, reducing the business hours of their operations and recalling most of their forces back to Lionheart Town and Golden Cricket Cove. Not only were they preparing for retaliation, they were also doing it while short-handed.

The two week vacation that the clan slowly cycled through actually turned into a 40 year stay on the Inner World. After Sage advanced again, the scale of time also shifted. Every stage of Nascent Soul he surpassed boosted time by 100 times. Now that he was in the tenth stage, a peak Nascent Soul, it was a thousand times faster on the Inner World than the outside world. It took only slightly longer than fourteen and a half days for a full forty years to go by. Returning to the Inner World for such a long time would not really be that beneficial for them as they’d just started to entrench themselves in the outside world, but that is why these two weeks were split up into eight smaller stays that spanned five years each.

Each of the members of the Lang Clan would be gone for less than two days, spending five years on the Inner World. Then they would return for a few weeks before heading back again. This gave them ample time to learn new skills on the Inner World, then some time to put them into practice on the outside world before returning to learn something new or to refine the things that didn’t work as they expected on the outside world.

Just like the culture of the Inner World, Sage didn’t want to intercede too much. There were some things that he tried to promote or invent from Earth that he brought to the Inner World and his Clan because he missed them or because he knew how useful they were. Yet, there were many other inventions and devices that he never bothered with. Other than the basic infrastructure related to human needs: water, sewage, heating and cooling, he had only selfishly created airships, entertainment media, and bio-computers. He’d also greatly improved the power of propaganda by using news style broadcasts instead of relying on flyers and word of mouth like the current rulers did, but in most other cases he allowed the people to grow in their own ways.

Most of the advancements in relation to bio-computers and the media were still being controlled. There were many businesses and facilities offering access to them, but they were not offered to every citizen in home versions. Most of the mid-range Cultivators could probably afford them, but Sage had encouraged a group model so that everyone could have access rather than only Cultivators. The Cultivators paid for access to priority services, and these costs could then pay for the public screens.

The Lang Clan itself were the only ones who received their own Adjutors, which was also the main reward they were receiving from this trip. Most of them chose to make them their linked insect as this was many times more beneficial than not, but there were some who had special battle partners insects that chose not to. Some of them used this time to fuse the two together, but others just used the Adjutor as an assistant while keeping their linked insect the same as before. The good thing about the Adjutor was that they could link and unlink to them anytime they wanted. These bugs were specially bred for this and unlike others where it was usually easier to just breed a new one to link with, the Adjutors treated a specific member of the Clan as their forever master and would remain completely loyal whether they were linked or not.

This extended period of time on the Inner World was meant so the Lang Clan could digest all the gains that the Inner World had made over thousands of years. The advancement in techniques, engineering, media, professions, and all sorts of other things could all be brought out with them and used to improve the Clan in the future. In fact, Sage had long ago lost the ability to know everything going on in the Inner World. He could only rely on the researchers of the Lang Clan on the inside to do most of the heavy lifting in that regard.

Before leaving for the Depths, Sage planned it as a sort of test run to see how the Lang Clan functioned without him. If things went well he assumed that he’d be leaving for a long time afterwards to pursue higher realms. While he cared for his family, the path to higher levels was still a mystery and the only way he’d been able to advance his laws so far had been to follow his curiosity and stumble upon lucky opportunities. If he were to stay with the Clan there was no telling when or if he’d ever advance again.

He never imagined he’d run into a huge opportunity in the Depths. The Realm Heart that Guan Zhenyan helped him take control of was likely many times more beneficial than Icefire Valley had been. Unfortunately, Guan Zhenyan told him that the more people experienced it, the worse the effect would be. It was also a prerequisite to already have a decent grasp upon the laws so only Nascent Souls were suitable to study there. He was tempted to bring along the strongest members of the Purple Mist Sect, but as Demonic Beasts their comprehension ability was much worse than a human, even as low as Sage’s was, and even if they were using Human Seals.

Talent, the perception of energy in the body as Sage understood it, was very important to reaching Core Formation in a short time. Yet, the knowledge of how to advance laws was controlled by those at the top and so Sage had no idea what actually controlled it. His own rate of advancement to a peak Nascent Soul was very quick, especially when considering how slowly he moved through the first four ranks. Then again, his rapid rise only happened after he started to incorporate the bodies of other creatures into his own. Perhaps the combination of the human mind with a more powerful beast body was the key to his success? His Clan would be a great example of this, as they were all quite talented. Even so, none of them had broken through into a Nascent Soul like he had so there was some other quality he was clueless of.

Either way, now that he had such a great opportunity in front of him, there was no need for him to leave immediately. In a few decades the Realm Heart should become active and he would have the perfect opportunity to advance. At that time, whether he advanced or not he planned to fulfill a promise. A prior deal he’d made with Guan Zhenyan demanded he perform a task for him within 300 years. Hopefully, he’d be ready to take it on at that time.